Elegy for Solo Alto or Bass Flute

From the Publisher

Composer's Notes

"In 1980 a friend of mine returned from a trip to Africa with an unusual gift – a recording she had made of a young girl absently singing to herself. For months afterwards the recording haunted me; it’s intricate ornamentation, rhythmic invention, quarter-note inflections and not least of all, the sheer beauty of the singing. I decided to ‘exorcise’ the recording by writing a piece dedicated to this anonymous singer and the lost or rapidly disappearing tribes of Africa.

"ELEGY takes the form of a series of variations, each one expanding in complexity, pitch range and ornamentation, differing aspects of the opening material. These variations assume ever widening cycles; however, they always return to the common still centre of the work, the refrain figure heard in the opening bars."

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